2000 AD #1651
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeProg 1651 is a genuinely loaded anthology issue, opening the first episode of 'The Life and Death of Johnny Alpha: The Mork Whisperer' — the John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra story arc that kicked off a bold, multi-year retcon of Strontium Dog continuity, treating everything previously published as 'folklore' and reimagining Johnny Alpha as a revolutionary figure rather than the benevolent bounty hunter readers had mourned. Simultaneously, it advances the 'Tour of Duty' era of Judge Dredd, a long-running storyline that reshaped the power structure of Mega-City One by redistributing its Judges across the Cursed Earth, and continues both the Nikolai Dante 'Lulu's War' mini-arc and Dan Abnett and Richard Elson's Kingdom 'Call of the Wild' sequence featuring Gene the Hackman. As an anthology snapshot, it captures a 2009 weekly Prog firing on four distinct cylinders, each strip mid-arc and speaking to Rebellion-era 2000 AD's confidence in sustaining complex, long-form serialised storytelling across multiple genres simultaneously.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
By 2009, Rebellion Developments — which had acquired 2000 AD from Egmont in 2000 — was well into its editorial stride under editor Matt Smith, publishing the weekly anthology with an emphasis on returning classic creators to their signature characters. Prog 1651 sits squarely in that era: Wagner and Ezquerra, co-creators of both Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, were actively running stories in the same issue, a creative reunion that had its roots in Wagner's Prog 2000 decision to revive Johnny Alpha with a meta-fictional 'folklore' framing that freed the strip from decades of accumulated continuity. The Kingdom strip by Dan Abnett and Richard Elson, which had debuted in the 2006 Prog 2007 Christmas special and run its first regular arc starting in prog 1518, was by this point well into its third serial outing, having built a devoted following for its post-apocalyptic dog-soldier premise.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Prog 1651 (2009, Rebellion) carries the opening episode of 'Strontium Dog: The Life and Death of Johnny Alpha — The Mork Whisperer' (Book I), the first chapter of the major Wagner/Ezquerra retcon arc that reframed all prior Strontium Dog stories as unreliable 'folklore.'
- The Strontium Dog strip — starring mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha — was originally created in 1978 by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra for the short-lived comic Starlord before transferring to 2000 AD.
- The 'Life and Death of Johnny Alpha' arc (Book I running progs 1651–1660) significantly revised in-universe continuity, depicting a post-New Church New Britain with a more liberal government and Johnny Alpha recast in a Castro-like revolutionary role.
- Prog 1651 also carries an episode of Kingdom's 'Call of the Wild' arc (progs 1650–1661), written by Dan Abnett and drawn by Richard Elson — a series about genetically modified dog-soldier Gene the Hackman fighting giant insect hordes on a post-apocalyptic Earth.
- Gene the Hackman first appeared in 2000 AD prog 1518 (in the Kingdom debut story published in Prog 2007 Christmas special and regular run from 1518 onward); prog 1651 is a mid-arc appearance, not his debut.
- The issue also carries the Nikolai Dante 'Lulu's War' arc (progs 1651–1654), part of the long-running swashbuckling future-Russia series created by Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser.
- Judge Dredd's 'Tour of Duty' storyline — running through this era of 2000 AD — restructured Mega-City One's justice system by sending large numbers of Judges out into the Cursed Earth, providing the backdrop for the Dredd episodes in this prog.
- The characters listed for this issue — including Chief Judge Francisco, Deputy Chief Judge Sinfield, Judge Beeny, Judge Cardew, and Middenface McNulty — are supporting players from the ongoing Dredd and Strontium Dog serial casts, with no confirmed first appearances in this specific prog identified across available sources.
Cast · 17 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files #48 (2025)
Key issues in 2000 AD
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